Poem: Sky Bridges above the Seine at Marnay
Books & Poetry
This week’s Poet’s Corner features a further contribution from Jena Woodhouse.
Sky Bridges above the Seine at Marnay
Marnay-on-Seine, France
In March you hear them passing
overhead, and you look up to see
a bridge of wings that transits
the empyrean; cohering and dissolving
as the echelons fly north with spring,
returning from the warm south
of their wintering, to nesting sites.
Span on span, they arc above the Seine
in transitory skeins, their voices
hail each other as they recognise
their home terrain, feeling the familiar
thermals ease them through remembered
skies, where no hunters intercept
the bridges they construct in flight;
calling their anticipation, urgency, delight.
Following the Seine as guide
they travel onward into night,
hopeful that with dawn they will
reach journey’s end, descend, alight.
Watching from the arched iron bridge
that bears the needless sign, La Seine –
water chatoyant, chalcedony;
wing-scribbled aqua light –
I sense the current’s energy, as do
the birds, already tired, urging them
to one last burst of stamina, while I
abide – wingless, non-amphibious,
a creature not equipped for flight,
witnessing the passage of the river,
chevrons ranged on high,
listening as pinions cleave
trajectories through mild spring skies –
Jena Woodhouse, born in Rockhampton and raised on a farm on Queensland’s Capricorn Coast hinterland, lives in Brisbane. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Honours in Russian language and literature and a postgraduate Diploma of Education from the University of Queensland, and a Master of Arts in creative writing from the Queensland University of Technology. She has taught Russian, and English as a second language to immigrants and refugees. She has been the recipient of a number of international fellowships and residencies, including at the French CAMAC Centre d’Art in Marnay-sur-Seine in France, where today’s poem was written. More details of Jena’s writing and publishing, can be found with last week’s, and next week’s, Poet’s Corner contributions.
Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to poetscorner@solsticemedia.com.au. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.
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